


Doctor Who And The Care Bears

by rowanthestrange_yugihell



Category: Care Bears, Doctor Who
Genre: Canonically Genderqueer Secret Bear, Crossover, Gen, Swearing, The Author Losing Control Of Their Life In Real Time, Thirteen's Wardrobe Explained, Threats of Violence, references everywhere
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-31
Updated: 2018-01-31
Packaged: 2019-03-11 22:44:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13534092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rowanthestrange_yugihell/pseuds/rowanthestrange_yugihell
Summary: In which Missy has her soul scrubbed via the medium of tummy laser, the Doctor isn’t up for dealing with any of this, and Grumpy Bear just wants some waffles.





	Doctor Who And The Care Bears

* * *

  


“Care Bear STARE!”

A blast of light sears the Doctor's retinas, and imprints rainbows several layers deep in his soul. It's surprisingly pleasant actually, though that's probably his brain spurting the cocktail of chemicals that make it so that if you do have to die, at least you don't have to die sober.

There's an ‘Oof’ sound, a few commiserating clucks and coos, and slowly his vision turns back on.

A three-foot-tall blue teddy bear is lying on the floor, cradling its belly, and Missy is making a ‘come on’ gesture with her outstretched fingers. The Doctor's fairly certain she's just kicked him.

“Aw, I hate this job.”

“Are you ok, Grumpy?” Squeaks the cheerful pink bear, whose stomach was previously a multicoloured blaster aimed at the Doctor's face.

“I just wanted to have breakfast.” The blue bear moans, sitting up and rubbing his cloud-marked belly.

The little gang of bears help Grumpy to his feet, and eye Missy warily.

“Aye, that's right, you do that again and we'll find out if you've got an arsehole in all that fluff, cause my foot will be going straight up-“

“Missy!” The Doctor snaps reflexively. She turns her rather alarming look on him instead. “You can't say that, they're...” Are they kids? They don’t really seem like children, but there's a principle in there somewhere, and he tries to express it with a complicated combo face-and-hand gesture. Missy doesn’t seem to grasp it.

“I nearly died.” Missy says, melodramatically.

“Ok, I think we've gotten off on the wrong paw.” Says a brown teddy bear with a red heart on his tummy. “I'm Tenderheart Bear, and me and my friends are here to help you.”

“You know, you don’t usually fire lasers at people to help them. I speak from experience.” Missy says, waving the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver in the bears' direction, before he snatches it back and puts it in the pocket furthest away from her.

“Well, the Care-Board lit up and - as chief operator - when I found that the Heart Shadow signal was coming from adult humans, I knew I had to scramble-“

“We're not human.” The Doctor interrupts. Sometimes it's better to hide these things, and let people make their assumptions. But sometimes you're speaking to sentient cuddly toys who just drove down from the sky in cars apparently made of clouds, and just attempted to blind you.

“Two hearts.” Missy says, hitting a fist over each of them, then holding it out in front of her, in a way that makes him regret ever giving her access to the internet.

“Oh. But you look human.” Tenderheart says questioningly.

“Hey, Nobleheart Horse looks like a bear from the front.” A brash sunset-coloured bear with a prize cup on his stomach says. “I'm Champ Bear,” He addresses them boldly, clapping a hand to his chest, “And I for one, welcome our new alien overlords.”

“Time Lords.” Missy corrects.

“You-what-now?”

“ _Anyway_.” Tenderheart says firmly. “We've made those nasty Heart Shadows that made you feel all unkind go away, and next time we'll make sure to explain ourselves first - even if the person does appear to be a grown-up.”

“And it'll probably go just as well.” Grumpy Bear mumbles, still rubbing his cloud ruefully.

“But anyway, _anyway_ ,” Champ Bear says, “If you're not from Earth, and you're not from Care-A-Lot, where _are_ you from?”

This time nobody interrupts, and they all look at the Doctor expectantly.

“We're from...“ The Doctor points up at the evening sky, but trails off as the combination of complex feelings about Gallifrey, along with the teddy bears giving off the same aura of students whose sole qualifications upon entering his class are ‘a good sense of fun’, sap him of all energy.

“...The stars.” He finishes lamely, and Missy looks at him in complete disgust. Well if she wants to explain interstellar travel to these things, he's not stopping her.

At this, one of the bears - orange or pink, he can't tell in the twilight - flaps its paws a little, and shuffles towards him nervously, gesturing silently between the sky and the pair of them.

A definitely-orange bear with flowers on its stomach steps forward, rolling back its shoulders confidently, and the other bear leans up and whispers in its ear. Perhaps that's what the lock on its stomach means. Not allowed to talk. Probably a sex thing.

The Doctor wrenches his wrist out of Missy's stealthily assumed grip, and she gives him a Cheshire Cat grin at the interjected thought. She knows what he's like with telepathy, damn her.

The flowery bear clears its throat.

“Hi, I'm Friend Bear. Secret Bear says h-“ She suddenly stops and turns to face her...colleague. “Sorry, which is it today?” She whispers, a little too loudly as if she's not very used to the action. Secret Bear quickly whispers something back, before Friend Bear continues.

“Secret Bear says she's only ever seen baby stars up close, and what are the big ones like?” Friend Bear says with a grin, as Secret Bear nods to her side.

“Baby...stars... You mean a protostar?” The Doctor asks. Maybe they're from the Orion Nebula. All sorts of weirdos on the belt.

The bears giggle as if he's said something stupid, and a sunshine-yellow bear says through its snorts,

“No silly, baby stars - Starbuddies.” The yellow bear puts their paws to their mouth and whistles. 

“How is it doing that without fingers?” Missy mumbles. The Doctor shrugs.

A streak of gold zooms from the cloud car and into the arms of a teal bear, who snuggles it close. The bear's stomach has a star with a tail arcing across it. The Doctor doesn’t like prophetic images, it always means someone’s screwed up their time travel somewhere - usually him.

It pads over to him, and the new rainbow bit inside him forces him to crouch down to the bear, and hold his arms out as it passes him something, as carefully as if it were a baby rabbit.

“Make a wish.” The bear whispers.

For a moment, all the Doctor can do is stare at the thing plopped in his hands.

“Oh, that is bullshit.” Missy says, peering over his shoulder.

He doesn’t admonish her this time. She's right.

It's a little gold star.

Not an actual star. A star like a starfish is a star. A child's idea of what a star looks like, with four tiny limbs and a pointed head, and in the middle an Adipose-like face. It's smiling.

Missy's spidery hands dart forward, but clearly something he's been saying has gotten through, because she lifts it with surprising care, cupping it in one palm and keeping it balanced with the other.

It burbles and squeaks, like a happy rubber chicken.

“That isn't a star.” The Doctor says bluntly. He can hear Missy saying ‘You are bullshit,’ under her breath. He's reasonably sure she's not going to dropkick it, but it still makes him feel nervous.

“Not a star yet.” The wishing bear says quietly.

“It's a Starbuddy.” Pipes up the cheerful pink bear. “That means when it grows up big and strong, we'll take it to Big Star Point, and then it'll fly into the sky and become a _real_ star.”

She sniffs and rubs her eye, not losing any of her beaming smile.

“It's so beautiful... But what about you? Care-A-Lot's in the clouds, but it must be amazing living among all those giant ones like The Great Wishing Star.”

All of the bears sigh wistfully and look at the sky. All except one, anyway.

“Yeah, yeah, I'm sure it's great.” Grumbles Grumpy, pushing up a pair of imaginary sleeves and approaching Missy again, putting his hands up for the star... _buddy_.

“This is bullshit.” Missy hisses to him with a smile, as she bends down.

“Well I'm sure you'd be familiar with it, sister.” Grumpy says, plucking the star from her hands. 

The bears all gasp, but Missy gives him an appraising look.

“Alright Blue Balls, tell me - in twelve words or less - what you're doing here.”

Grumpy Bear passes the Starbuddy over to Tenderheart as soon as he opens his mouth to speak.

“Find evil. Stare the evil. Evil at bay. We go get breakfast.” Grumpy says flatly, his last sentence punctuated by his growling stomach.

“Who knew that the only thing needed to fix the world's problems was in a teddy bear's laser blasting stomach. Those journalists and their fake news; to think they were suggesting it wasn't going so well...” Missy drawls.

“First of all lady, we're Care Bears, not teddy bears. Second, we're talking Heart Shadows - possessive magical darkness, you can't Care Bear Stare away fascism.”

“Grumpy and Laugh-A-Lot sure did try though.” Interjects the wishing bear.

“And third, Heart Shadows only affect kids. And you, apparently. Maybe you're children by alien standards, I don't know, I'm just here for waffles.” Grumpy Bear says, as his stomach rumbles again.

“Aw, he's just modest. Grumpy takes all of the difficult ones, cause he likes helping people so much.” Friend Bear says, about to pat him on the arm, but then apparently thinking better of the action.

“You're the reason they don’t need a Boyfriend-Leaked-My-Nudes Bear, huh?” Missy says. It's not really funny. The Doctor understands. Grumpy sighs as if he hasn't slept in thirty years, like he's running on a treadmill, no end to his responsibilities, too many kids he can’t save, always more and more and-

“Zyka.” The Doctor says abruptly, causing all the bears to turn and face him. “Restaurant in Fishponds, about twelve minutes by car, less if you fly. Best waffles and gelato in Bristol - and chicken, if you're omnivorous - open until eleven. Their white chocolate sauce can save a person an inch from death, believe me.”

Grumpy Bear nods.

“Wahoo, waffles! Alright sports fans, that's a job well done, now let's touch the sky!” Champ Bear shouts, and the Care Bears wave their goodbyes and start piling back into their convoy of cloud cars.

Grumpy Bear lags behind for a moment.

“You're aliens with two hearts, that's what you said, right? Shouldn’t make a difference, but I can make sure the Shadow hasn't just jumped from one to the other, if you want.”

To the Doctor's surprise, Missy shrugs and stands in front of the blue bear. When she turns to look at him, he steps close beside her and slips on his sonic sunglasses. 

Grumpy takes a few steps back - whether for his own range, or just to keep out of Missy's, the Doctor isn't sure - and takes in a whooping inhale before everything becomes rainbows again. 

When it stops, both of them waver for a moment, and hope that the wrapping of an arm around each other looks like a sign of Heart-Shadow-free-friendship, rather than lightheadedness.

Grumpy pants a little.

“Probably didn't need it.” He says. “You're not my first aliens. I met one with no heart before - not _the_ No Heart, just a person without one - and she still got a Shadow inside her. Don't think it's a physical heartbeat thing. Wish every alien came with their own on-site diner though.” 

The blue bear raises his arm lazily and heads back to the car.

“Hey, Cheers, you're driving now.” He shouts ahead.

“Okey-dokey, you look as sleepy as Bedtime Bear!” Giggles the pink one, shuffling into the other seat. 

There's the sound of bubble machines whizzing to life, which the Doctor assumes are actually engines being revved.

“Care Bear Countdown! Four! Three! Two! One!” They shout, and together they take off into the air in the direction the Doctor gestured. 

He and Missy watch them fly out of sight, and then look at each other. It feels like waking up from a dream, or somehow waking into one. A sense of unreality yet hyper-reality, the cool night air suddenly sharp on his skin, every blade of grass on the college green in too high definition, and a feeling of an imaginary weight falling from his shoulders so that he might float away if he stops concentrating.

“Do you feel any different?” Missy asks.

“No.” The Doctor lies.

“Good. Me neither.” She lies back.

  



End file.
